Elon Musk confirms new Tesla vehicles won’t be cars

Tesla is gearing up to reveal two new electric vehicles next year, neither of which will be cars.

Elon Musk, the CEO and co-founder of Tesla, revealed that the firm is working on a pair of vehicles during a post-earnings conference call with analysts yesterday, as reported by the IBTimes. But in a surprise move, Musk confirmed that these new vehicles are a semi-articulated truck and a minibus, both of which will be electric-only.

Tesla has only launched two vehicles to date: the Model S and the Model X, and has plans to begin deliveries of the Tesla Model 3, a four-door luxury sedan, by the end of 2017. The new vehicles, currently dubbed the ‘Tesla Semi’ and the ‘Tesla Minibus’, will be revealed within the next six to nine months, with Musk saying that mass production would begin “within low single digit years. I consider anything past five years as infinity”.

Tesla’s Model 3 was revealed in March this year, and has nearly 400,000 reservations

Despite the exciting news of new vehicles, Tesla’s earnings call saw the company report a significant loss of $293.2 million ( around £220 million) for the second quarter of 2016. Revenues were 33% higher year-on-year however, but an increase of operating expenses by 34% meant that Tesla failed to turn a profit.

“In the development of a vehicle, there’s a long phase in the beginning of the development that involves a lot of time, but not a lot of costs,” explained Musk, hinting at the progress of the Model 3. “It’s when you are tuning up for production that the cost starts to increase dramatically.”

Tesla’s Model 3 was revealed on March 31, 2016, and has already received 373,000 reservations. As a result, Tesla is doing its best to ramp up progress on the vehicle, with a view to double Model 3 production targets to 100,000 in 2017, and 400,000 in 2018.